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An anonymous reader writes "Panelists at a recent technology expo argued about how to motivate people to conserve energy, dragging out all the usual suspects, from financial incentives to emotion appeals to 'save the planet.' However, one panelist trumped the status quo by noting that adding the 'cool factor' could make energy conservation fun via apps on smartphones and tablets. By making energy conservation as fun as a video game, the fickle on-again, off-again of human nature might just be overcome."

Economic power allows women to choose the size of their family, and experience shows that population growth levels out when a country achieves a certain level of prosperity. Condoms, birth control pills (synthetic hormones - bad for long-term health of the woman, but good for temporarily preventing conception or implantation), vasectomies (or wearing a testical-heater/nut-cup), etc - lots of ways to prevent babies. Even "Natural Family Planning" works pretty well, because there's only a few days a month tha

There is another way to reduce family size: religion. If the Catholic Church and a large enough number of Imams decided to lighten up on contraception and recommend keeping family sizes down then potentially billions of people would listen.

Otherwise, as you say, we will just have to wait for these societies to mature and proper enough to reject religious views on offspring.

The problem is that the majority of the methane (which has approximately 20x impact on the greenhouse effect vs CO2) is actually emitted right out the butts of livestock bred for our food & clothing. Either you're going to have to put a pipe up each animal to capture that, or we're about to have the world's biggest BBQ...

Good point! One more reason to believe that biotech is the future, not clunky 1940s nuclear or 1800s petroleum tech. The only way to get better cows is to breed better cows, they won't spontaneously generate themselves out of a particle accelerator or a steam engine.

You do realize that this only has effect in 30+ years, right ? (Arguably it only has definitive effect once the current childbearing cohort starts dying off, so that means that if people have kids at 30, and live to 80, we're talking 50 years)

If you want to have a real effect through changing the population I'm afraid "direct intervention" (think socialist eugenics in the 1930's) is the only viable option.

But your idea sounds good, it is a horrible idea (because it will lower the amount of productive citize

People with large families aren't doing it for the money. Having kids is already a significant expense, and the tax breaks for kids don't really amount to squat in comparison to the expense.

The childless families are rolling in money by comparison. Both can work...

No diapers, no day care expense, no extra mouth to feed and clothe, birthday presents to buy, constant school fundraising/fieldtrips/hotlunch days/bookfairs, haircuts, dental work, glasses...

Nobody has kids to save moeny.

And throwing a tax burden on them won't stop them from having more kids.

The trailer park squad is having them because they make bad decisions... and they aren't going to consider the tax ramifications of unprotected sex if they failed to consider the pregnancy ramifications of unprotected sex.

The no contraceptives for religious reasons group isn't going to stop having sex or having kids due to a tax burden either... they'll just be poorer thanks to you... perhaps driven to live in trailers with the first group.

Finally its not like large families can 'right size' in response to the burden either, even if they wanted to.

Meanwhile... the childless couples will putter around in their sports cars and vacations with their disposable income augmented by tax breaks until they get old and apparently have to be looked after by someone elses kids.;)

That said.. you said tax breaks for small families... so maybe you mean families of 3 to 5, instead of childless couples. And that's less caustic... but tax breaks for childless couples is demented.

If you want small families though, taxes isn't the way to do it.Education and prosperity is the path to smaller families.

Childless couples put less burden on society, plus when they get old, they'll help the economy because they'll have to pay someone to look after them.

What they should do is have a tax break for 1, maybe 2 kids per couple, but after that give them exponentially increasing tax burdens. 3 kids, a very small burden, 4, a moderate one, 5 a large one, etc.

Families of 3-5 are good, because it's enough people to keep the population stable, but small enough that parents can devote more time and resources to their k

People who view other people in terms of how much burden they put on society are generally themselves the ones putting the largest burden. They don't know much about much so they can only view individuals in the same terms that farmers view bovine stock. You want to reduce misery in the world? Make sure every sociology major is required to spend his life with indigenous population rather than just a few years of "research." Yes, I am generalizing. No, I won't take it back. I am ok with not having gover

Unless they run out, and then society puts them in a shallow hole until they starve to death and then covers them with dirt. Oh... wait... no... society foots the bill.

What they should do is have a tax break for 1, maybe 2 kids per couple, but after that give them exponentially increasing tax burdens. 3 kids, a very small burden, 4, a moderate one, 5 a large one, etc.

Your missing the point, though. That won't stop stupid people from having kids. Trust me... the

Your missing the point, though. That won't stop stupid people from having kids. Trust me... they REALLY didn't want to get pregnant and they couldn't bother to take the steps to prevent that... they are NOT going to be thinking about "tax breaks".

Tax penalties as birth control will work about as well death penalty for people trying to commit suicide.

There's nothing that forces parents to keep their children if they "REALLY didn't want to get pregnant". Around here, you can drop off your kid at any fire sta

If the children are young enough, there's ten-year-long waiting lines for people wanting to adopt healthy children.

The problem is if 1) the children are too old; no one wants to deal with a foster teenager with severe emotional issues; or 2) the parents won't release their rights to the child. Lots of kids in foster care are like this: perfectly adoptable, but the stupid parents won't relinquish their rights, so they're stuck in "foster limbo" where the state takes care of them in group homes, but no one c

If the children are young enough, there's ten-year-long waiting lines for people wanting to adopt healthy children.

Because poor drug/alcohol abusers living in trailer parks dropping off babies at fire stations are just the thing people are waiting 10 years to get.

Come on.

As for stupid parents not relinquishing their rights... the bond between parent and child is pretty strong. Instinct, genetic programmed, survival of the species mechanism for a few millions of years... that sort of thing.

Perception of financial security generally leads to people starting families. Baby booms usually follow economic booms. Remove road blocks to prosperity and people who want to raise children will have more of them.

At first, yes. The effect is well-understood and well-researched, try asking google or wikipedia about "demographic transition".

Primitive societies, have high birth-rates, but also high death-rates, then living-conditions improve, and death-rates fall, but birth-rates remain, leading to population-growth. In the next-phase births fall too though, and so the new steady state is low-deaths AND low births.

Many wealthy nations today have birth-rates *below* the replacement-level, this is true for large parts of

Why not go for full necrophilia? Why just light bulbs? Snuffing life out of life is smexy. Let's get people excited about public hangings since it's people that cause all these emissions, right? At which point do we get to call ecofascism by its proper name?

If I believe the has already been crossed, it's not a slipper slope argument then.

Logical fallacies have nothing to do with what you believe, and everything to do with what you say. Here is what you said:

Why not go for full necrophilia?... Let's get people excited about public hangings since it's people that cause all these emissions, right?

That is exactly a slippery-slope fallacy, unless you are claiming that these things have actually happened. If they haven't, then this isn't a line which has been crossed. Suggesting that crossing some other line (one you nevermentioned) will lead to this is pretty much a textbook slippery slope.

Now we are just arguing semantics. You want to call ecofascism "fluffy bunnies."

As far as I can tell, I'm actually putting forth arguments, and you're putting forth fallacie

I can't think of any time when saving money was considered 'cool'. Smart, sure, but then again 'smart' was rarely 'cool', either. Most societies idolize overblown displays of wealth and physical ability, not thrift and intelligence.

Oh please. You're trying to tell me that China and Japan worship sports the way Americans do? That's complete bullshit. They have their sports, of course, but not the way we do with "sports bars" full of big-screen TVs blaring dozens of ESPN channels simultaneously, and the addiction that many American men have to them. They also DO value intelligence in a way totally the opposite of us. While we make fun of engineers, people in India and China consider it a highly respected profession, the way we do w

Depends on who you talk to. Among engineers and other technical people, no, lawyers aren't really well respected. Among poor people and less educated people, they think of lawyers almost like gods. Other more-educated people in useless jobs tend to think well of them too. Finally, just look at the voting public. Year after year, who do they elect to the highest positions in government? Lawyers. Look at who all the "intelligent" liberals voted for in '08 for President: a lawyer.

I can't think of any time when saving money was considered 'cool'. Smart, sure, but then again 'smart' was rarely 'cool', either. Most societies idolize overblown displays of wealth and physical ability, not thrift and intelligence.

Well, maybe then we must make it that having energy conserving technology shows wealth. Make energy saving products expensive and look expensive. Then, gradually introduce less expensive models (but not too fast). Slowly the "if you have it, you must be rich" will turn into "if you don't have it, you must be poor". Which still is a great incentive to get it. And by the time that everyone (actually, everyone who could afford the non-energy saving equivalent) can afford it, it will be the normal thing, and no

I believe that is it evil to have the attitude of 'Do what I say or I will hurt you.'. This is the immorality of governing organizations. It is ok to jail/hurt someone who hurts people, but is it right to hurt someone who doesn't want to help someone? To me the answer is obvious, but to most people in the US the answer seems to be the opposite of my opinion.

It is ok to jail/hurt someone who hurts people, but is it right to hurt someone who doesn't want to help someone? To me the answer is obvious, but to most people in the US the answer seems to be the opposite of my opinion.

Depends. I more or less agree with you, but evolutionary pressures have driven us to develop the tendency to punish not only those who directly harm the tribe, but also those who refuse to help the tribe. In small tribes, you could simply banish those who were useless - in modern society, we don't really have that option. Public shaming would have been one way to deal with such issues... however, in the Internet Era, public shaming can be more harmful than imprisonment. I'm not sure how to deal with it

Yes, but technological advancements have allowed us to depend on the tribe less. And enabled us to be more productive through use of higher brain functions than through mechanical repetitive labor. The only thing which stands in our way is jealousy of those less able.

I don't think the effect is huge, but since i switched from a Rav4 to a Prius i've noticed that my driving habits have gotten a little more conservative, and i think the main factor is the little current and cumulative "miles per gallon" readings on the display. Trying to keep it above 45 mpg can be kinda fun, and it really doesn't seem to affect how quickly i get anywhere very much.

I used to gun the motor a lot more in the Rav4 just cause it was fun and there wasn't much reason not to (the difference in mileage and thus the difference in how often i had to fill up seemed pretty marginal) but now that i've got direct and immediate feedback playing with the mpg gauges is also fun, even if in an entirely different way, and now it's the marginal difference in time that i'm dismissing rather than the marginal difference in mileage. (And i still drive faster than i probably ought to, and i still will gun my car from time to time just for the fun of it, just nowhere near as often.)

Nissan Altimas have the MPG meter, and I notice I do try to keep it as high as I can when I have it on (though I rarely do. There's more important info screens on there, and for some reason they decided to make the fonts on each one huge so you can't put them all on at once).

But I just wish we could get an accurate gas gauge. If people (me, at least) could tell that this trip used 2.168 gallons, they'd know it also cost $8 and they might think about doing things differently. For now, all you know is that your last ten trips used something like 3/8ths of a tank. And a tank in this car is, uh... 18.3 gallons? Maybe? Times 3/8ths is, uh... Fuck it. If I need gas I'll get gas.

A real-time meter that says your flooring it and slamming on the brakes every 10 seconds just cost you 0.2 gallons over 30 seconds (or whatever) might make people a little more conservative.

When it comes to cars I couldn't agree more. Vehicles constitute a status symbol where spending too much money makes people feel better. Screw the cool factor - that's what makes people buy inefficient vehicles and drive in a wasteful fashion.

I used to be scared driving next to sports car-driving idiots who insist on getting to 80mph in moderate traffic while leaving only half a car length of room in front of them. Since I upgraded a car which shows my MPG, I watch their brake lights flicker constantly a

You do have an accurate gas gauge. It's the one on the gas pump when you fill up. Keeping track of miles since last fill up gives you a very good estimate of MPG. Days since last fill up adds in MPDay. Paying attention to -- and trying to maximize -- the MPG on the dashboard (which is always optimistic) improved my calculated MPG from 33 to 35 and cut my MPD from 1.1 to 0.95.
The car I drive less often has an "instantaneous" MPG setting which is also fun to play with -- going down hills it maxes out at

+1000 insightful. All of us (men, there are no women on the Intartubes) game while we're driving. Speed and time if we don't have a choice. A mpg readout is the best way to give a better target, and any government serious about the environment would mandate the permanent display of one in all new vehicles. SUV owners can put tape over theirs.

When I commute, I want to be able to glance at a gasoline usage meter and see how much I've used up to that point and how it compares to the same point on previous commutes. Then I can compete against myself, similar to the "ghost" in Mario Kart.

After living most of my life in a community where things like recycling were common practice my the vast majority of it's citizens, I moved to a large city in "the southwest". The trendy society page people have just, in the last two years, started to talk about "going green", recycling, etc. as if they were "the latest thing". Yeah, it's lame, but if that's what it takes to get people on board, fine. Everything that helps to disarm the conservative, "fuck your grandchildren and their environment" types, wh

Everything that helps to disarm the conservative, "fuck your grandchildren and their environment" types, when they try to paint environmentalism as some commie-liberal evil plot, is a welcome addition to the dialogue.

Nice straw man. Do you really believe that? Conservation (hey, that looks like "conservative") is positive when it's performed voluntarily, or agreed on by a community-- not when it's imposed on people at their own cost of property and freedom. That's what conservatives think.

Or maybe people (our grandkids) should have the liberty/freedom to decide if they want to live in a polluted/warmed environment instead of other people (us) making a nonreversible decision for them. We could force conservation and sustainability on 6 billion people now, or can force it on ~10 billion of our descendants (and maybe more) later by virtue of leaving no other options; which leaves the most people with the most freedom?

Is that they are focused on the irrelevant. The biggest CO2 contribution of *anyone* is coming from car travel, just about the sum of all other CO2 expenditures on average - but since electric cars are a) overly expensive due to the cost of batteries b) total crap if you need to get anywhere over a certain distance due to the inability to "charge a tank" quickly, the idea is to improve public transports and have people use cars for long-distance travels for which other options suck.
Second important on

Second important one is excessive house heating. That one has an appeal too - don't heat as much , and/or insulate your house, and you'll save money, and quite a lot

Not enough. To make it economically worthwhile, it needs to have a payback time of 3 years or so.

Most people don't stay in their house much more than 5 years. Worse, these days with the mortgage meltdown, a lot of people don't even own their house, they're renters, and probably won't be buying another house for 7 years or more.

a few degrees, unless the landlord pays for your electricity , which is bloody unlikely, pays off now, even if you don't own the house. It is a matter of choosing applicable strategy based on where you live
And nobody was talking about solar panels or other overly expensive methods anyway - polystyrene plates for wall insulation are reasonably cheap, and they do deliver.

In urban areas public transport is very effective, fast and low on energy consumption. however, it has to be subsidized, because car travel is subsidized a lot. Plus, people do not count all cost for the car when they compare it with public transport, but only the gas.

For midrange distances you can use trains (at least in Europe) they are save, fast and you can relax or work while you ride.

The only area where public transport does not work very well is the country side. There cars can be more usable.

I thought Idiocracy is just a movie, but when we really have to sell a sustainable way of life with coolness, I start to doubt that. On the other hand, this would make Europeans pretty cool compared to people from the US.;-)

I'm an all out eco head, but expecting a silver bullet to solve our energy problems is bound to fail. Those early using the "energy dashboards" are self-selected to have an interest in energy savings and/or new gadgets. This will not translate to the general public. The EnergyStar programmable thermostats were predicted to save between 15-30% for a typical home. When used as prescribed they did deliver those savings. The mechanical engineers, EnergyStar and widget makers declared victory and pushed the

I'm sorry, but I can't help but feeling smug when one of my dumb neighbors complains about how he's spending hundreds of dollars a month on gas for his jacked-up V8 pickup truck, and I'm spending less than $50 for two 30mpg cars. I probably wouldn't feel smug but for the fact that idiots like that complain so much after making stupid choices, and then they refuse to make smarter choices that would alleviate the problems they're complaining about.

For example, a new office building could be made so that all its walls and roof are covered with solar panels, underneath which water pipes run - light is converted to extra electricity and hot water. Start a program to outfit regular house roofs with solar panels, too, and try to get people to get and drive electric cars in cities to ease the load on the electrical grid and make the air clean to breathe.

Because these things all have enormous capital costs. Money doesn't grow on trees (unless you're the Fe

Yes, that's a problem with how America does things. If it can't be used to make huge profits, a perfectly fine idea gets ignored. Businesses would much, much rather sell people on a $1000 "Energy Star" dryer (LOL) than a $5 clothes line. Too much of our economy is about selling us the most expensive fixes for our problems, and making up more problems for us.

Have had half a dozen window sellers try to persuade me to spend $6K to $14K to upgrade all our windows to fancy double or triple pane ones filled

Must be nice! I spent that much in one month during the winter, and my house is properly sealed and insulated (by 1990s standards). Obviously, you either live in an ideal climate or have a house that is already very efficient. Certainly in your case, new windows do not have a short ROI and this is true for most houses.

We have gas heat, we're in Texas, and our house is relatively small. Possibly the clutter helps too. A/C is the bigger cost. The biggest savings is from setting the thermostat to 80 F in the summer. I'd go even higher, but the rest of the family whined. I tried sneaking in higher temps, set it up 1 more degree, but they noticed and set it back. Texans are funny about A/C. It's like they want to show off how well the A/C works by cooling to 69 F. I take a jacket on the rare occasions I go to a summer

Yes, that's a problem with how America does things. If it can't be used to make huge profits, a perfectly fine idea gets ignored. Businesses would much, much rather sell people on a $1000 "Energy Star" dryer (LOL) than a $5 clothes line.

Actually, the problem I discussed wasn't about "huge profits" at all, it's about 1) problems endemic in the home mortgage industry, 2) problems with the mentality of the average home buyer (wanting the biggest house for their dollar and ignoring all else), 3) the simple fact

Suffer? No. We become acclimatized. Supposed to be healthier too. I find 85 F quite comfortable in the summer, and 68 F in the winter is just fine.

The pay back on electric solar panels can be as bad as 80 years. If the panels degrade over time, they may never pay for themselves. I'd like to do it, but after technology brings the prices and risks down a lot more. There's a real possibility that panels could indeed be improved by 100% or more in the next 5 years. Meantime, we can get more bang for t

No, we can't. It's beyond the laws of physics. We're pretty close to the limits of efficiency already.

Do you really believe that? It's true that recent safety regulations have made it more difficult to save weight, but we're nowhere close to exhausting the weight reduction possibilities with cheap materials. No need for exotic, expensive lightweights. For example, all cars still carry spare tires, despite flats being less common. We could change how we handle flats. There is still much in the engine bay that can be reduced. Can toss the power steering and not o

As long as we keep building cars the way we do now, with stamped and welded sheet steel, and modern safety standards, and internal-combustion engines, yes. Obviously, some kind of new super-high-capacity fast-recharge battery technology would be a complete game-changer, but that always seems like it's "just over the horizon", just like nuclear fusion which is always 30-40 years away (i.e. a moving target).

No need for exotic, expensive lightweights. For example, all cars still car

There were large vehicles long before power steering. Just had high ratios on the steering wheel.

Aluminum is not an expensive, exotic material. And we're looking at the practicality of using more magnesium.

I have driven my slow car on the freeway. It's nowhere near as bad as you make out. The average loaded 18 wheeler needs over 60 seconds to accelerate from 0 to 60, would you call that dangerously underpowered? Doesn't sound like you appreciate just how fast 0-60 in 5 seconds is. That's modern mu

There were large vehicles long before power steering. Just had high ratios on the steering wheel.

No one wants to go back to the days of huge steering wheels, and even then they certainly were hard to steer, especially for women. Just ask your grandmother. Higher ratios also aren't much fun to drive, with having to turn the wheel so much. Do you really think you're going to get people to abandon power steering to save 10 pounds of weight (probably the typical weight of a modern EPS motor)? You can go ta